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Good evening.

Welcome to the August twenty-eighth, twenty twenty-five Rent of Housing Committee regular meeting.

This meeting is called to order at six oh three PM.

Now I will proceed with roll call.

All committee members are present.

Moving on to item three, the consent calendar.

These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the committee wishes to remove an item for discussion.

The purpose of the consent calendar is for the committee to efficiently and quickly consider routine or administrative business items with one motion.

Public comment will occur after the discussion.

We invite you to submit a speaker card now.

If you would like to speak on this item during public comment or raise hand on Zoom.

Would any member of the committee like to pull an item?

Seeing none, I now invite public comments, in-person public comments to speak first.

Any member of the public wishing to provide virtual comment on this item, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or star nine on your phone.

Seeing none, I will now bring the item back for committee action.

If motion to approve the consent calendar should include the reading of the title of the agenda item.

I make a motion to approve the consent calendar, including item three point one minutes for the July twenty-four, twenty twenty-five RHC meeting and three point two community stabilization and fair rent act and mobile home rent stabilization ordinance financial expenditures for fiscal year twenty twenty-four twenty-five.

Second.

Motion made by Vice Chair Cox, second of my member Brown.

Any discussion or questions on the motion?

Seeing none.

Motion passes unanimously.

We will now open the meeting for oral communication from the public.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the committee on any matter not on the agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section.

State law prohibits the committee from acting on non-agenda items.

Would any member of the public like to provide comments on non-agenda as items if you're on Zoom?

Press, raise your hand or for star nine.

Seeing none.

We'll not move on to item five point one, rent stabilization division.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item and committee questions.

We invite you to submit a speaker card now.

If you would like to speak on this under public comment, we'll begin with a presentation from staff.

Sure.

Sure.

Okay, good evening.

Thank you, Chair Ma, and good evening, committee members.

Agenda item 5.1 is a presentation from staff regarding the activity report for fiscal year 2024-2025.

You'll see here the first few pages of the activity report, which was also provided in the agenda packet and is available online at Mountainview.gov/slash rent stabilization.

So the first thing we'll go over is the first section.

These slightly represent our programs, and you'll see one of our major programs here, community outreach and education.

Then we have like three main topic areas: information requests and inquiries, community outreach, and education and information.

We'll go over those now.

So the first section is information requests and inquiries.

You'll see here we responded to 3,369 inquiries from the public.

And I would like to note that this does not necessarily reflect all of the inquiries and touch points related to one-time utility petitions and petitions.

So obviously, we provide a lot of support during those processes, and that is not necessarily reflected in this number.

This number represents the number of times that we receive questions and inquiries from the public, not necessarily the total amount that we support.

We received about 50% of our inquiries from tenants and about 50% of our landlords from our inquiries from landlords, and had approximately 1,100 phone calls and 168 emails, followed up with 473 walk-in visitors and 117 scheduled appointments.

The inquiries were 12% Spanish language, which actually represents more or less the population, the Spanish speaking population in Mountain View.

And you'll see here this year, tenant petitions were our most major area of inquiry, followed by property registration and utilities, and then one-on-one utility petitions.

These are separated into two categories because of the type of inquiry that was received.

Next up is the community outreach section.

We gave 44 workshops with a total of 318 participants and 824 views received through our YouTube channel.

Twenty-one of these workshops were bilingual, so just about half.

And we participated in 109 outreach events and reached 3,639 community members.

We also sent targeted mailings to specific landlords, specific properties, and specific tenants.

That represented 2,739 mailings.

We have 682 properties representing 12,753 units for fully covered properties, 12 partially covered properties representing 1,686 units.

And of those for the current year to date for registration cycle, this does not land on the fiscal year.

This lands on the calendar year.

96% of our properties are registered compared to 95% last year, and 96% have paid their rental housing fees, which is the same as last year.

For petitions, you'll see here details of the petitions that we received for the fiscal year as well as petitions received over time in the fiscal year for this past year.

We received 39 tenant petitions and eight other types of petitions.

And for the most part, those are decided.

We are a little bit moved along in this process now for petitions from the past fiscal year, and have quite a few that have actually made it through the process.

We have had very few that were actually appealed relating to this fiscal year.

I know that you heard a lot of appeals during this fiscal year, but they were actually related to petitions filed in the 2023-2024 fiscal year when we had around 80 petitions.

You can see here that we are working still with the Mountain View Mediation Program, which is just the rent stabilization division by providing free education mediation and conciliation services to landlords and tenants.

We had 71 cases that were educated, mediated, or conciliated, and 68 of those 71 have been resolved.

As for the housing help center, you're well aware by now that we have two housing help centers, one for landlords that has been every week for quite a while to help support with those one-time utility adjustment petitions.

We held 43 of those last year with 68 landlords who were helped.

And the top three reasons that property owners and landlords attended the housing help center was one for utilities assistance and assistance with those utility adjustment petitions, two for property registration, and finally number three for the rental housing fee.

Next up, we can talk about tenant housing help centers, which happen every other approximately every other week on the first and third Thursday of the month.

We held 22 housing help centers with 230 tenants assisted, tenant household assisted, and the top three reasons for attending the housing help center was rental assistance, affordable housing and below market rate housing inquiries and legal assistance.

48% of the people who attended the housing help center required assistance in a language other than English.

50% have a household with three or more people in them, and the majority, 83% of the people who are receiving assistance through our housing help center for tenants, live on less than $55,000 a year for the household annual income.

And our housing help center has community partners that join us every first and third Thursday of the month.

And those community partners include the community services agency of Mountain View and Los Altos, as well as community legal assistance through CLESPA, and we have 31 households that received rental assistance through CSA with an average rental assistance received for the fiscal year of $7,495.

85 tenants received tenant households received free legal advice through CLESPA, 75% of those that received legal advice had received a termination notice, and 12 households received legal representation, allowing them to remain in their home.

Next up is that our eviction prevention information required noticing-wise, we had 266 bank rent increase notices that went out, 1,075 termination notices, approximately half of those were for unique households, which means that there were repeats that received termination notices.

Two tenant buyout notices went out and no additional occupants um notices were filed with our system.

In terms of evictions, there were 21 with units withdrawn that received eviction notices in 2024-25 and two owner movements.

We had um 20 notice to cease violations that were filed with our system, and one failure to give access, and then failure to pay rent notices.

You'll see they actually dropped a little bit from last year.

Um we had about 1,026 failure to paint rent notices that were filed with us.

You can see that trend during the quarters there, and 569 unique households received failure to pay rent notices for the year.

Next up is tenant relocation assistance and property sales information.

You'll see here one property went into redevelopment in 2024 25 with eight units that were affected and one household that received assistance for property sales for covered fully covered units.

Uh we had 14 properties that transacted representing 172 units, still well below our average of 324 there, and there are currently four properties for sale representing 104 units.

Again, we're not really seeing redevelopment on these properties right now.

It's more just properties transacting.

Next up is information about mobile homes.

Um we have six as you know, we have six mobile home parks in Mountain View representing a hundred and one thousand one hundred and thirty mobile homes and one hundred and eighty-two rented mobile homes according to our rent registry system.

A hundred percent of parks have registered, a hundred percent of those rental space fees have been paid.

For information requests and inquiries, we received 18 inquiries from the public.

You'll see the breakdown there, and the biggest inquiry topic was registration.

We had no petitions filed or received for the MHRSO related coverage in 2024-25, and we had no no-fault evictions over time, and 24 failure to pay rent notices were given during that time period.

Next up is market conditions.

We'll look at average market rent.

You'll see here the average market rent has gone up and continues to, but is you know, um, up significantly from our low dip in 2020.

We're now at about 2,894 for fully covered units, and you'll see the breakdown of how that looks by the number of bedrooms as well.

Vacancy rates have declined.

We are below the 5% threshold for the year.

We have a current vacancy rate of oh gosh, 4% for fully covered units, 3.2% for partially covered units, and 14.6% for newly built units.

That spike in newly built units is because new units came online.

And this concludes staff's presentation of the activity report for fiscal year 2024-25, and happy to take any questions on this item.

Now we move on to questions from committee members.

Does any committee member want to ask a question?

Member.

I apologize if I didn't do this in advance.

Um I think I've asked before.

Um were any UDs received during this past quarter?

Um Andrea, do you have happen to know the answer to that question?

Yes, there were, but I don't have the number.

Okay, I had but it would have only have been a few.

Okay.

And um the other question I had about the notice to cease, like do you recall like what the common things that we're supposed to cease?

What the common issues were?

We were kind of all over the map.

I I know there's some belongings in places where they're not supposed to be on balconies and things like that.

A few other hoarding issues, um, noise, quite enjoyment issues.

Where are some of them repeats?

A few, yeah.

Not much more the same.

Do you um does staff do any proactive outreach when there's a notice to cease?

We do uh something similar that we do with the termination notices.

So we we mail out a letter directly to the tenant with a copy to the landlord.

The landlord also knows what the city is sending out, um, but it just says basically that we've received a notice to cease from the landlord, and then it also provides um information about our housing help center so that they can come and get a business there as well.

If um I'd recall there being hoarding issues in the past, do you um I know it's a little tough to get uh tenants engaged, but is there any kind of extra work you try to do getting them connected to legal reconnect them to class buff, whatever for a housing and to ask for accommodations to make a plan, I think that's that was the extended questions.

All right.

Um, the question.

Okay.

Uh I'll ask a question if no one else wants to ask a question.

My question is just rather minor.

I saw on the report that there have been zero additional occupant notices.

Is that expected?

Because I feel like at least we would see a few.

I'm gonna refer to Andrea for that one as well.

Thank you.

Um we don't normally get that many additional occupant notices.

Um it seems to me from what I've heard throughout the community that for the most part when tenants and landlords are discussing people moving in and out, they usually can handle it between themselves.

Okay.

Um and then when that's not the case, they'll come to us for assistance, and then we usually assist them with that additional occupant notice.

Um, so we usually see them when maybe they're not coming to an agreement by themselves.

Okay, sounds fine.

All right.

Uh I see no one in the audience.

I see no one on Zoom, so we'll move straight into uh committed deliberations and feedback.

Uh Vice Cox.

Sure.

Sure.

Thanks.

I really look forward to whenever these reports come out because uh as I mentioned before, it's the thing I get most questions about in my neighborhood.

So uh there's a number of pluses and a number of minuses in this report.

Let me go through what I see.

Um I had the number of inquiries over time has stabilized out to about 3300 a year.

I think that's good for predictability and planning.

So.

That's a good thing.

Um another thing is um that it's great to see that the CSFRA um uh landlords uh paying the fees and registration is making uh a little bit more progress.

Um 96% is uh the best that we've seen yet, I think.

And always uh with respect to the mobile home parks, uh the history of a hundred percent park registration and payment of rental fees is you should get a gold star and a blue ribbon.

Also uh no petitions and uh lower number of evictions, that's a plus too.

So um let's see, then on the minuses, one of the things that pops out is that the rent for newly built units is 55% over that of fully covered units, which uh I understand the fully covered units are usually older, and um and you know may not uh wouldn't necessarily get the same uh rent even if everything was fully at the market rate, but it's the kind of thing that it um it's a bit of uh pressure when people look at that high market rate rent, and they just say, wow, that's high.

Anyway, um the vacancy rate for the newly built units is up another two percent, uh while the vacancy rate for the fully covered units dropped from five to four percent.

So um, yeah, I mean, to the extent that that increase uh is new units coming online, and you know, it typically takes a year or two for a new complex to, you know, fully rent up.

Um, that's that isn't a cause for alarm, but it is something we want to keep our pulse on over time, uh, because uh, you know, this got discussed on two threads that people brought to my attention on next door saying that why do we have such a high vacancy rate for new units?

Um, why don't we have a vacancy tax?

So, I mean, we need uh it's good to just like I said keep a pulse on whether or not this is just ramping up or if this is uh becoming steady state.

Um the vacancy rate for is the lowest for three bedroom apartments, and that's kind of you know that shows that our community could be a little bit challenged in being able to put uh put families in apartments because families typically would like three bedroom apartments.

Um then I wondered, you know, uh the fact that we had gone down below the five percent to four percent for the fully covered units, so this would have an impact on the bank rent increases, and uh thank you for providing that information.

It looks like they're on the upswing again, and from 143 last year to 266 this year.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, that could translate into people getting uh increases in their rent higher than the CPI, so um some concern, but not stuff that we can do anything directly about anyway.

Just want to note those things for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, member Bulch.

Yeah, so I see that the uh once again the capital improvement petitions appear to be zero.

So, assuming that's accurate, I'll remind everyone that that means that landlords are not seeing it worthwhile to really look after the long-term condition of their property.

There are many reasons for that, but it's definitely a warning, very serious warning sign for the state of housing in the city.

So that's my comment.

Thank you.

Any others who would like to comment?

Seeing none, that ends the item.

Now we move on to item 5.2 amendments to the CSFRA regulations, chapter one, purpose, chapter two, definitions, and chapter three code of conduct.

Further comment will occur after presentation item and committee questions.

Um we invite you to submit a speaker card now if you'd like to speak on this item or press star nine or raise hands on Zoom if you're online.

We'll begin with a presentation from staff.

Give me one second, sorry, having some technical difficulties this evening.

Thank you, Chair Ma and committee members.

My apologies for the technical difficulties, can't quite figure out what's happening over here, but we will make it through.

So please bear with me as I have a slightly problematic screen situation.

Um agenda item five point two is amendments to CSFRA regulations, chapter one, two, and three.

And um, for this, the purpose of this um agenda item is for the rental housing committee to consider adopting amendments to the community stabilization and fair rent act regulations, chapter one purpose, chapter two definitions, and chapter three code of conduct.

A little bit of background on this, the CSFRA empowers you, the RHC to establish rules and regulations for administration and enforcement of the CSFRA.

To date, the rental housing committee has adopted 13 chapters of regulations, and um the intent of those regulations is to implement and administer the CSFRA, while various provisions of the regulations have been amended from time to time and additional chapters have been added, they have not been subject to a general review, and staff recommends initiating an administrative review of the regulations to be conducted over the course of the next fiscal year, beginning with this item.

The proposed amendments are intended to clean up, clarify, and update the regulations and improve the CSFRA regulations, the tool for implementation, administration, and enforcement of the CSFRA.

In part, the revisions are based on questions and feedback received from the community, including from landlords, tenants, hearing officers, and other stakeholders.

This item begins with staff recommendations for updates to regulations chapters one, two, and three.

And a complete overview of the amendments and other minor cleanup edits, including correcting references and ensuring uniform formatting, is reflected in attachment one of the accompanying staff report.

So the first substantive recommendation is related to CSFRA regulations, chapter one, section B.

And the amendment is to add section B in this entirety to allow staff the authority to amend CSFRA regulations as similar to the authority that the RHC provided to staff regarding the one-time utility adjustment petition process, which allows staff to administratively make minor non-substantive amendments to the regulations to make it possible to streamline clarifications and make it easier for landlords and tenants to understand the requirements of the law.

And this section will ultimately permit staff to make these minor changes to the CSFRA as deemed necessary without the need to bring these changes back to the committee for deliberation and approval.

The changes will be provided in as staff reports to be on the consent calendar, and the committee can then pull these items as consent items for review if so desired.

The next amendment, and I'm not going to read these amendments, but they are provided for you in your agenda packet as you're in your staff report and in the company attachment.

The next regulation substantive change is related to Chapter 2, Section D, and this goes and provides a clear definition of what it means to have a covered rental unit.

As you can see, the text used to state that the covered rental units was just all rental units, not specifically exempted by the CSFRA, and we have now provided definitions of what that actually means.

This is actually something that we have received questions on, especially for the section of fully exempt rental units, which goes into more detail about what that actually means and provides information on clarifying that rental units that are subject to housing assistance payment program, what that means, how that's affected, rental units that receive assistance under section eight, clarifying that those are units are not exempted.

And it also provides clarification about duplexes and single family homes and then gives examples of how CSFRA section 1705 and coverage relates to actual properties.

We do receive questions and inquiries about this relatively frequently, and providing this clarification will assist our community in understanding more of the details of what is an actually fully covered rental unit versus a partially covered rental unit and and fully exempt rental unit.

Next up is CSFRA regulations update to chapter two section L, and subsequently Section X.

This provides definitions for what the petitions are that are available to the community at this time and give definitions for what a rent increase petition is, a rent decrease petition, specified capital improvement petition, joint petition, exemption petitions, and one-time utility adjustment petitions.

And incorporating these terms in the definitions make it easier for the community to quickly reference these terms and also provides clarifications about what types of petitions are available in the community.

Finally, the last substantive change that is being reviewed by the committee this evening is related to chapter three, section B of the regulations, and it just simply cleans up some areas of the regulations, including clarifying that we are um holding meetings in council chambers, um, giving some different language for the adjournment of meetings related to updates regarding the Brown Act and um simplifies some additional language in this chapter.

And the recommended changes to chapter three are again due to reflecting the logistics and conduct of the committee's meetings and also simplifying the language to reduce confusion and to ensure compliance with the Brown Act and other CSFRA regulations.

This concludes the staff presentation for um item 5.2 and happy to take any questions at this time.

All right, we will move on to questions from committee members.

Is any member of the committee would like to give a question to staff?

Seeing none, we'll move on to public comment.

Any member of the public wishing to provide a virtual comment on this item, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Staff or display a countdown timer on the screen.

Seeing none, we will move back into committee deliberations and feedback.

Uh Vice Chair Cox.

Uh yes, I want to thank you for my for the answers to my many questions that I sent in about this stuff.

Um, and I did want to read uh one of the questions and and the answer into the record.

I had asked if a member of the RHC disagrees with a minor amendment made by staff.

What recourse does the RHC member have?

Could we include some language that would describe the process?

And the answer was as noted, the minor amendments will always be placed on the consent calendar.

So the RHC is aware of the amendments.

If a member of the RHC disagrees with a minor amendment by staff, they would be able to pull the item from the consent calendar per the usual process and open a discussion.

So thank you for that clarification.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable way of dealing with it.

I just wanted to make the comment about why I care about this.

The first um political discussion I got involved in here in uh Mountain View was over the conditions on the Madeira apartments, about a half a block away from my uh street.

And what had happened is the zoning administrator had after the project had been approved, had um given his okay for the inclusion of a rooftop deck uh where party music could be played at all hours.

And you know, the thing was is that people on my street didn't consider that a minor.

We asked him how did you do that after the approval was done?

He said it's a minor amendment.

And so I mean, just as many people talking about pickleball this week, you know, are concerned about noise.

Um, we went to the city and we said yeah, that wasn't minor in our estimation, so we want to have some discussion about this, and he was kind enough to let us do that.

And we came up with a resolution that you know that they would turn they would not have that music playing, uh, no amplifying equipment, and they wouldn't play music after eight o'clock in the evening, and we've all been real happy with the result after 15 years.

So it it just comes around.

I just want to if the issue, I know you guys would be the ones deciding what's minor and what's not, but I just and I probably I believe you guys will probably make all the right decisions, but I just want a chance to look over it and raise the issue if I feel I need to.

So thank you for accommodating me on that.

Member Brown.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I just wanted to say I'm very happy with this.

I think that the I appreciate the diligence and communication and thoroughness.

I think this is a great move, and I hope the city takes notice and follows the example of our fantastic staff.

Member Keating.

I also want to say thank you, and that there were several places as I was reading through where my internal dialogue said, that's so much better.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other comments on this item?

Okay.

A motion is in order.

Okay, a motion has been made by Member Hisliff, seconded by Member Brown, Member Hisliff.

Would you like to say the motion?

Um move to adopt amendments to the community stabilization and fair rent act, regulations chapter one purpose, chapter two definitions, and chapter three code of contact.

All right, seeing no discussion, we'll move on to vote.

Motion passes unanimously.

We will now move on to agenda item 5.3 amendments to the MHRSO regulations, chapter one purpose, chapter two definitions.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item and committee questions.

We invite you to submit uh raise hand on Zoom now if you would like to speak.

Now we move on to the presentation.

Good evening, committee members.

Thank you, Chair Ma.

Item 5.3 is a presentation on amendments to the MHRSO regulations, chapters one purpose, and chapters chapter two definitions.

So the purpose of this agenda item is for the RHC to consider adopting amendments to the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance regulations chapter one and chapter two.

This presentation is very similar to the one that you just received for the CSFRA.

The MHRSO empowers you the RHC to establish rules and regulations for the administration and enforcement of this chapter.

To date, the RHC has adopted 12 chapters of regulations to implement the MHRSO.

And since the initial adoption regulations have been amended from time to time, but no general review or cleanup has occurred.

Staff recommends initiating an administrative review of the MHRSO regulations to clean up, clarify, and update the regulations.

Revisions are based again on questions and feedback received from landlords, tenants, hearing officers, and other stakeholders.

And just as a reminder, the city council amended the MHRSO in June 2022 and March 2025.

And some of the changes reflected in preregulation updates are intended to address the changes made to the actual ordinance.

Only substantive amendments will be reviewed with the committee this evening.

However, a complete overview of the amendments and other minor cleanup edits, including correcting references and ensuring unique union uniform formatting is reflected in attachment one to the staff report that was provided as part of the agenda packet.

The first amendment is similar to the one for the CSFRA in chapter one, section B, and it adds this new section for staff authority to amend the MHRSO regulations.

Again, this section permits staff to make minor changes to the MHRSO as deemed necessary without the need to bring those full changes back to the committee.

But the staff will provide the RHC with notice of proposed amendments by placing the amendments on the consent calendar of the agenda for the relevant RHC meeting.

This parallels the authority that the RHC provided to staff regarding the one-time utility adjustment petition process to administratively make minor nonsubstantive amendments to the regulations.

Up next is similar to the one we just reviewed related to defining petitions in chapter two, section U.

And you'll see here we now have definitions for rent increase petitions, rent decrease petitions, and specified capital improvement petitions.

We do not have an exemption petition for mobile homes, and we do not have a utility adjustment petition for mobile homes, but we do have a joint petition, and that is defined here.

Additionally, we provide a definition for substantial compliance or substantially compliant.

And again, this is meeting the requirements as defined in table one of chapter 12 of the MHRSO regulations.

These terms are used throughout the MHRSO regulations but are not defined in chapter two.

And staff feels that incorporating these terms in the definitions chapter makes it easier to quickly reference the terms for landlords, tenants, the community, and staff as well.

Next up is one more change or addition to section AA of chapter two, and this is related to the term rent rollback.

While the term was previously defined in the MHRSO regulations, it was uh incorrect compared to the way in which the term is used throughout the regulations.

So we provided some clarification there.

And correcting the definition of this term will make it easier for mobile home park owners, landlords, mobile homeowners, and mobile home tenants to understand how to come into compliance if the term is being used.

And finally, up uh staff recommendation is for the RHD to adopt amendments to the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance regulations of chapters one and chapters two.

And happy to take any questions at this time.

Thank you.

Does any member of the committee have any questions?

Seeing none, we will move to public comment.

If you would like to give comment on this item, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or press star 9 on your phone.

Seeing none, we'll bring this back to the committee for deliberations and feedback.

Would any member of the committee like to propose a motion in the meantime?

Member Brown.

I move to adopt the amendments to the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance regulations, chapter one purpose and chapter two definitions.

Any discussion on the motion?

Seeing none, we moved on to the vote.

Seconded by Shercox.

Passes unanimously.

Now we will move on to agenda item 5.4 update on one-time utility adjustment petition process.

Public common work after the presentation item and committee questions.

We would invite you to raise your hand now if you'd like to speak on this item during public comment.

We'll begin with the presentation.

One more for me this evening.

Good evening, committee members, and thank you, Chair Ma.

Agenda item 5.4 is an informational update on the progress of the Community Stabilization and Fair Rent Act one-time utility adjustment petitions process.

Little bit of background on this.

December 18th, 2023 meeting, the RHC adopted chapter 13 of CSFR regulations to clarify that the definition of rent under the CSFRA includes utilities and to address utility charges and the use of ratio utility billing systems, otherwise known as rubs or similar systems for shared or master metered utilities in CSFRA covered properties.

During the December 18th meeting, the RHC requested staff to provide regular updates to the RHC throughout the utility petition implementation process.

The first update was provided a year ago at the August 2024 RHC meeting.

And the following overview provides a summary of the efforts to date, including implementation of the petition process, outreach and education, and support provided for landlords and tenants.

The implementation process has six phases, and you can see we have completed the first three, and the last three are all in progress.

The first phase is implementations, phases one, two, and three.

Phase one was performing research and receiving input from the community, phase two was adopting regulations, and phase three was actually building out the implementation of the petition process.

Phase one involved RHC study sessions, stakeholder meetings, and staff analysis to develop recommendations for RHC consideration.

Phase two was when the RHC adopted those regulations and it focused on drafting and adoption of regulations, and then finally phase three of the completed phases was developing the internal procedures necessary for the implementation of the utility adjustment petition process.

That involved significant project milestones, including the hiring of hourly staff, the creation of process workflows and standard operating procedures, and the testing of landlord submittals, tenant responses, and staff processes for petitions as described in the regulations.

Upon review, areas of the regulations required refinement to ensure the process was administratively feasible.

In May of 2024, during the RHC staff of the RHC meeting, staff presented and the RC RHC adopted recommendations to amend the regulations to address these issues.

Phase three was completed in August of 2024.

And on to the next final phases four, five, and six.

Phase four is performing outreach and education.

This started way back in December of 2023 when the RHC first adopted the regulations for this process, and it continues indefinitely until this process is complete.

Phase five is actual submittal of the petitions to the division by property owners.

And phase six is the staff actually processing those petitions.

So these phases are all underway.

Phase four, outreach and education, which you see here.

We started with an insert in the rental housing fee invoice, developing our web pages, and then have gone on to have consistent outreach and educational workshops, petition clinics, the housing help centers now every week for property owners, and we do send out different types of mailings and communication points throughout the process.

So you'll see here, to date, we've had 11 landlord-focused workshops with 150 participants, four tenant-focused workshops with 22 participants.

I think that number might be a little bit off for our totals.

I'll have to double check that for the tenant-focused workshops.

We've had one, we've had two inserts in the rental housing fee invoice.

Three postcards have gone out that were mass mailing related, two landlord packages, four newsletters have talked about this, and we've had three mass emails that went out to just about everyone that we possibly could touch.

And then we have targeted outreach that's been occurring per property category.

We've had postcards that go out specifically based on property when the property due dates are for the submittals that provide different information related specifically to that property category, letters with pre-address return envelopes to allow for responses, emails targeted to specifically to specific properties, and then direct phone calls to targeted properties as well.

We've developed web pages and information sheets, FAQs and 15 forms and templates to help with this process.

And then we also hold those weekly housing help centers for landlords and biweekly, well, one to uh the first and third Thursday of the month for tenants.

And then you'll see here the landlord submittal process or phase five of our implementation plan.

And the submittal periods were twice extended by the rental housing committee to address the level of staff support needed for properties to submit the petitions and prevent properties from missing the submittal deadlines, which as you know comes with significant potential penalties associated with missing the deadlines.

This here shows you what those updated deadlines are.

So we are about to hit another deadline soon for those properties with 6 to 20 units, and they are due September 30th, and then one to five units are due December 31st.

For that first chunk of properties with more than 20 units.

Again, we received a 100% submission response rate, which represents 9,027 of our 12,754 fully covered units.

And we will go over what is currently happening with the other size properties at the end of this presentation to ensure or hopefully ensure compliance with our deadlines.

We will provide the same level of extensive customer service support that we did for larger properties to our smaller properties and research and contact non-responsive properties through a variety of methods.

We are sending out, we've sent out a postcard, we are sending out targeted letters.

We'll send out actually two different targeted letters to landlords that have not responded in any way.

We will also do a mass email campaign and then make phone calls as well.

So we are really trying to reach all of these properties to avoid those penalties occurring.

And then we have phase six, our final phase here, which is actually staff processing the petitions.

This will continue until all petitions are processed.

And in the final phase of this process, we review the submitted petitions and any responses received from tenants, analyze the calculations in the workbook, make a determination of whether the utility adjustment for the property were properly calculated, and then there's notifications that go out to tenants and landlords of the adjustment.

We've worked closely with landlords for just about a year to refine the petition process to make it as easy as possible for landlords to submit petitions, notice tenants, and apply adjustments.

To do this, we've created over 15 forms and templates to facilitate the process from landlords.

We systematically review and revise the process and execute many of the complex steps, including creating anonymous tenant workbooks and pre-filling notice forms on behalf of the landlords.

And these process improvements have made it easier for tenants and landlords to understand and comply with the process.

Relatively, we have been seeing a relatively successful process, even though it is quite to be a complex, and we will continue to review feedback that we receive from the community to further streamline the process as we go along.

You can see here this is the number of units that have submitted petitions based on property size or that have confirmed that they do not use rubs.

So this is point and time information.

You can see here that for our more than 20 units, we've received 100% submittal compliance that again includes the properties that have confirmed that they don't use rubs from that, or have told us that they don't use rubs.

From that situation, we either send out the follow-up information, including the notice of filing to tenants that have currently used rubs, or in a situation where a property is not using rubs, we send out a different packet so that tenants can respond to us to let us know if indeed they are using rubs, and then there's a different process that we follow up with with property owners if that's the case.

And then finally, you'll see here that we have actually finalized 3,208 units for 52 properties that have made it either in have made it somewhere through the process fully for the um greater than 20 unit category.

The next chunk is the six to 20 unit category of properties, and we've had 28.5% of those properties respond representing 745 units.

And 66 properties have responded.

We have processed and notified tenants for 289 units representing 27 properties or 10.8%.

And then 220 units have completed the process in that category representing 8.4% of that type of property completely making it through the process in some way.

And then finally our last category which is our smaller properties we've received 11% of the submittals that are expected representing 122 units from 35 properties of those um 105 units have received some sort of communication from us whether that's the notice of filing or the confirmation that the property does not use the rubs representing 29 properties and then finally 74 units have made it through the process in some sort of totality representing 21 properties or 7% of that chunk of potential submittals.

And the next step in this process is that we will continue to implement the petition process and provide updates to the rental housing committee as requested and we estimate that the process will be finalized by September 2026.

Happy to take any questions on this agenda item at this time from the committee.

All right member Hislip.

Okay I have a couple of questions and one of them is perfectly fine to do follow up an email um I I'm maybe it's numbers okay so we have a hundred and in the one to five unit category a hundred and twenty two units eleven percent what is the 11% represent a percentage of so of the total amount of units in that category okay 11% have responded.

Have responded so okay um the question that I was gonna ask which can be that the information I understand might take some compiling but I'm curious to know who the owners are in each of these categories who filled petitions out so a hundred percent um response rate for the 20 more than 20 units and this is just the the ones that do have rubs um it'd be interesting to see how many owners it is and what types of owners they are I don't expect but seeing a list of them and then having an understanding yes I realize that number includes it but the num the information I'm requesting is of the ones who do have rubs and filled out the petition um like what the the owners are so of the well of the ones who have rubs in the two the 131 properties that are over 20 units like what's the list of owners in that is that do you mean names?

Yep.

I mean it's a so okay what I I'm trying to understand is what's the the type of owners that might be owning a five unit property versus a larger property um and if they you know the story you always hear is it's mom and pops who own the smaller buildings like you know why are they not availing of themselves or responding?

Does there need to be some better outreach to them.

So I do want to clarify that the eleven percent is kind of expected because their submittal date is way later.

Oh, okay.

Of the bigger properties, if that's what you concern is.

Okay, then um let me refine my request.

I'm very curious for other reasons too who the owners are of in the in the uh over 20 unit category.

Um who do have rubs and submitted the petition.

Sure, and maybe no good reasons.

I mean, some of it is um in anticipation of the other jurisdiction, but I also am curious about the complexion of ownership of buildings generally, and this uh it seems like a you know three quarters of the units in this category are subject to reps.

That's a good chunk of um, because that's those tend to be the larger owners are the ones that tend to use algorithmic pricing and um engage in more profit making rather than tenant friendly.

So we would like to understand which ones are uh personal properties versus company uh properties owned companies, okay.

We can do that, yeah.

Just cause that can sometimes explain behaviors and when as a governing body we're trying to address certain problems, it's it's um helpful to understand the motivations behind the property owners that might be causing our questions.

That was all right.

Moving on to Vaisher Cox.

Uh, yeah, just a few questions.

Um do you think what you've seen so far?

I mean, um do you anticipate like for the six to twenty units that people are gonna be just kind of like waiting up to the last few days before they turn their submissions in, or do you think that they they trickle in kind of regularly?

Uh they are trickling in relatively regularly.

Um we anticipate that a lot of these properties do not use rubs, um, and that's one of the reasons why we're not seeing as many um filings because they're already in compliance with the law.

Um, but again, we're we are going to start our um or continue, but really start our very hands-on high touch outreach um for the properties that have not yet responded uh this week, so this coming week.

Um, and like in the six to twenty uh category, I mean like can can you give a ballpark estimate of how many people you think are gonna need to have extensive handholding because this is a difficult process for them.

I we are it's very different.

To be honest, it's very, very different between the um smaller properties and the larger properties.

The larger properties have required more extensive support for filing the petitions because they are so large.

And that's the bulk of what we have been dealing with for the past um year is those large properties.

Um that the smaller properties, the ones that have, you know, just a little bit above 20 units have been very successful in their in their filings and have required far less support.

So we're anticipating that just because it's so much easier for staff to assist a property that has 25 units instead of 400 units.

We can see the information and we can see where the discrepancies or the challenges or issues might be or the inf where the information is just inputted incorrectly, which does happen.

Um, by proxy of, you know, if you have a large property, we have some of the large properties had six different invoices for you know one type of utility.

So six invoices for ga for a gas charge or six invoices for a water charge per month for a year that they had to provide to us.

Um and those are multiple pages with multiple types of inputs in them.

Um those had to be inputted, you know, into the spreadsheets so that the spreadsheets would calculate and function correctly.

That all is far more challenging and complex than a property that has 25 units, one bill per month or one bill every other month, that can be really easily the error the potential for errors is minimized, and the ability for staff to catch those errors before a submission is filed, um, is much easier.

So and for us to do it a preliminary review, it's much faster.

Um, so again, the level of support is actually much less typically, even if someone has uh the person filing the petition has uh potentially greater upfront need for support, say that they might have challenges with tech and all of this thing.

These workbooks are um things that require a computer, we're far more able to assist quickly for these smaller properties than for the large ones.

Okay, and then just one last short question.

I mean, for a property that is, you know, like six to twenty units, once the landlord has gathered the data, you know, that he needs from each of the tenants, how many hours of work do you expect in terms him to be able to do to make the submittal?

Um, you know, it's actually not uh that difficult once they have the information that they need, it you they don't need to gather it from each unit.

They these bills are provided to the landlord by the the um, and most of the most of the time it's by the city, the the city department that um does utility billing.

So for instance, for a six unit property, the landlord would have 12 bills.

Um so it's relatively it can be relatively quick and we we are happy to provide the support to assist a property owner in that process.

Okay, I mean it sounds like hours when it's short, like an hour or two work.

I mean, you know, not very much.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Those are my questions.

Fabricating.

Thank you.

So there were opportunities through this process for the tenants to confirm the information that the landlord submitted.

And I'm curious were there situations where the tenants said no, that's not right, and just summary.

Sure.

So there have been very few actually, probably because of the extensive support that we've provided to um property owners during the process.

There was one where it was I think the very first submission, and um no one realized that hot water is a when you see hot water on a bill, it's not a hot water bill, it's actually a gas bill.

So that was uh landlord had to resubmit a different workbook to fix that issue.

They had included the calculation, they had included those numbers, they had just included them as a water charge.

Um, so that was one of the like I said, that was actually the very first property that filed.

It was one of those, like, oh, that's just a luck of the draw kind of situations.

Um we had one where a land a landlord um accidentally very accidentally put in the wrong room count, so that one had to be resubmitted to tenants as well.

Um, but that was really the major issue, the only two that had any kind of substantial issues.

And if I can add in one more question, um so for a landlord who doesn't use rubs, they were also requested to submit a petition.

So um they were requested to either submit a petition or notify us that they do not use rubs.

Okay.

In that case, uh if they notified us that they don't use rubs, we send out a um a letter to the tenants with a form that they can respond to um to let us know that they the landlord actually uses rubs or they um used to include utilities in rent and now are not, or there's all these different fields that they can choose from in this form to respond to our letter of um utility billing confirmation, and um they have a certain they have 30 days to respond, just like the other tenants that use rubs have 30 days to respond to the petition, and then we actually send out a final um letter to them once the process is fully complete, once we know that there's we've received no feedback from any of the tenants, and then that final letter also states to the tenant that they if the landlord is using rubs, if the landlord is unlawfully charging rent, they can file they can contact us and potentially file a petition.

So we have multiple follow-up points for properties where the property owner has stated that they don't use reps.

So then for the situation that may come up in a few days where you have the uh some of the six to twenty size units and it's after September 30, and you haven't heard from them.

Well, you assume it's the same as they probably aren't using rubs and notify the tenants to inform you that they are or aren't you using rubs?

That's correct.

That's that is our plan.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

So I think I think the committee members are trying to just uh get a clear sense for how the process is going.

Uh how much is labor, how much is you know, other either errors or maybe even uh lack of lack of cooperation.

What I what I think I heard you say is that on the large on the large properties over 20 units, there's just a tremendous amount of data input.

There's a lot of multiple invoices.

I could imagine a lot of like spreadsheet sessions of just entering keying and data manually.

Uh doesn't sound like there've been any serious discrepancies except for that case with the water bill versus gas bill and maybe a couple of things.

Um so is that a fair characterization that basically the process is working.

There's a tremendous amount of labor to key in numbers, but things are basically going okay and everyone's kind of playing by the rules, or is there anything else going on that we should know about?

No, we've had um wonderfully uh the property owners have been very willing to work uh through this process and um we've been as staff able to provide very extensive support um that we've received positive feedback on.

Uh and we have also um very conscientiously designed a process that reduces as much as possible the work that the property owners have to do themselves.

We've learned ways to utilize um functions in Word that pull in information from spreadsheets to automatically fill in letter templates.

Um we've created systems so that the landlords don't have to redact spreadsheets.

We created unique IDs so that the property owners could give one spreadsheet to their tenants that provided a way for the tenants to um review the information in the petition for their unit without the landlord having to go through and specifically only provide that information for that one tenancy, um, in a way that's anonymous for the units.

Um we really just continuously have troubleshot and reduced potential errors and um that kind of over attention to detail and to customer service has I think made the process what could be an extraordinarily challenging process relatively functional.

Um I would say, you know, without using too optimistic of a tone that it has been to this point about as successful of a very large process as I you know could have jumped up so um yeah uh the staff that is supporting this has done extraordinary work thank you so much it sounds like things are going well everyone's conscientious people are trying to do the right thing whether it's a large corporation or a small property owner folks are doing the right thing thank you very much that's awesome.

Member Hislip um I just had a thought and maybe it's too late for your registration period but um could you consider the possibility of asking the question as part of the property registration to try to capture those that haven't responded.

The property registration period starts in January for the next property property registration cycle um we do have a field in the registration um cycle that is related to current rent and rental rates and how those are affected by the implementation of uh utility adjustment um and we can definitely look for further into utilizing the portal in some way for this yeah I was just gonna say what to say we we've added in a field so that will be active in the next it's active now but when the majority of people input their information is during the next registration cycle we'll have that information that just seems like less work proactive work or mailings and they have to interact with it anyway.

I will go if no one else wants to my questions are about prioritization.

Is staff processing petitions first come first serve or are they prioritizing um you know larger versus smaller um we are prioritizing based on uh submittal deadline date right now so we're looking at the properties that um have uh the largest number of units on the property that is one of our prioritization categories um and um the other thing that we prioritized was uh for those larger properties sending out the notices of utility billing confirmation so that we could close out those properties as quickly as possible uh with that said uh when would you expect to be the uh rough completion date for the larger than 20 unit properties then at least to get the note tenants notified um I do not have an estimation at this time it's is so very dependent upon whether or not um the property owners are responsive in a timely fashion when we begin the submittal reviews we're you know about 50% through um but we are through a we are just wrapping up some of our largest properties um to get the notices of filing out so you know I would say maybe for those larger properties three three to six months.

To get them completed by spring next year.

Either one of those would be fantastic.

Okay.

We'll see all right seeing no more questions from the committee I'll move it on to public comment any member of the public wishing to provide virtual comment on this item about the one time utility adjustment petition please click the raise hand button on zoom or press star nine on your phone staff will display a countdown timer on the screen.

Seeing no hands we will move back to the committee by Shercox.

We do have a hand.

Oh sorry I see that I'll call um Philip Crosby.

Go ahead and unmute yourself.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

So for the tenants that are in uh apartments with 20 or more units, it looks like more than half of them are still receiving these rubs bills.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

They will continue to receive rubs charges until their um petition information is finalized.

Bill, you're on mute if you want to say anything further.

Okay, go ahead.

Is there any limitation on how long that will drag on?

We are processing the petitions as quickly as possible because we realize that this is time sensitive.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no more hands on Zoom, we will bring it back to the committee for full deliberation.

Uh yes, I want to thank you for answering my questions in detail.

In particular, I was worried looking at the, you know, just 26% of the stuff in for six to 20 units, and wondering if you know, in a month we would get this data in, but I'm feeling more confident about it now.

And you know, you're uh letting me know and the rest of us know that, you know, based on the size of the unit and the amount of the information, that uh generally makes the process a lot harder.

And so we may have the worst behind us, and as Mr.

Balchad said, it looks like we might have smooth sailing going on, so keep up the great work.

Uh I'd like to share with at least uh our audience member Phil Cosby, but you know, if anyone else listens to this now or later, some of the reasons why um it'll stretch the rubs will continue for a while.

So should I do that based on the uh would staff like to answer that or should I?

Okay, I will go ahead and we'll see how good my memory is here.

Um, so there's a distinction between so first of all the uh submitted uh petition from the landlord needs to be reviewed by staff, and that is happening.

I'm very confident as fast as possible, and then those would divide into two categories for tenant by tenant of is the calculated utility adjustment um combined with the prior rent, uh, you know, considering that and the considering the prior average bills, is it an overall increase or an overall decrease?

So if it's an overall decrease, then uh the landlord needs to give a 30-day notice of decreasing rent and then implement that.

If the overall uh utility adjustment results in higher, considering uh utilities rent, overall rent, then if the landlord had recently given their annual adjustment, they need to wait a you know until the next annual adjustment to implement the utility adjustment, and that means that rubs would continue for that up to 12-month period, and for properties where their petitions aren't finalized yet, we haven't even started that potential 12-month period.

So, especially in situations where the utility adjustment is creating overall increase, rubs will continue for a while, but to those tenants, I guess that would be better good news if it's going to be a little higher with their utility adjusted rent.

Thank you.

Any other discussion, deliberation, feedback from the committee?

Seeing none, we'll move on to item six committee staff announcements and updates.

Thank you.

Alright, so item 6.1, upcoming workshops and help center date.

And as usual, we continue to have our virtual office hours every Tuesday from 10 a.m.

to noon.

Thank you, Patricia.

And um people can register with the link on the Zoom.

Our workshop schedule for September is as follows.

On the 9th, we actually have two workshops.

The first one in the afternoon is focused on new landlords in Mountain View or any landlords that want a refresher on what to know about tenant protections, and that will be virtual only.

We also have one in the evening focused on mobile home run stabilization 101.

That one is open to all.

And on September 18th, we have a landlord-focused 2 p.m.

virtual workshop.

Again, about submitting the utility adjustment petition.

And this one is intended to catch any landlords that need help right before the deadline.

And for our landlord housing help center, again, we will continue to do those every Thursday.

We have available both in office and on Zoom.

And you did hear a lot about this earlier, but we are helping a lot of people with utility petitions, registration, and annual fee and general compliance.

This one is running in its usual times, the first and third Thursdays of the month from 6 to 8 p.m.

in our office at Escuela and on Zoom.

And this is our help center where we have a lot of our community partners, including CSA CLESPA, and Mountain View Mediation Program.

So we will continue to hold those.

And we have been having very high attendance, so it's going well.

Any questions?

Okay, I'll get.

So regulation amendments, as well as our annual update on rent stabilization petition program.

Does anyone have any final questions?

Okay.

So no petitions in the pipeline.

Okay, no appeals.

I hesitate to answer, but uh not currently.

All right then.

Seeing no further comments or questions or announcements from members of the committee.

This meeting is adjourned at 7 26 p.m.

The next round of housing committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday, September 25th at 6 p.m.